Book Club Possibilities

[LoneSage]

Reading Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart right now, pretty good read. I see a lot of Greek tragedy influences, which is interesting in the African setting.

Before that I read my first Kurt Vonnegut novel, Slaughterhouse-Five.
Straight up, it was weird as hell.

[jp]

I'm reading The Best of H.P. Lovecraft right now. I haven't gotten into his stuff since I was in high school... definitely enjoying this collection! I just finished "Rats in the Walls", just... awesome.

[Minzoku]

[I despise Quidditch, can you tell?]

J00 r t3h r0x0rz.

Well, most of it comes from having actually played World Quidditch Cup. What the hell. There's so much going on as to make it a totally impractical sport. Any other sport has ONE focus--Quidditch has at least THREE. Creative idea, terrible game

Before that I read my first Kurt Vonnegut novel, Slaughterhouse-Five.
Straight up, it was weird as hell.

I did a report on that for English, once... we were supposed to each do one novel and report about it, because--honestly--none of us were going to read all of these books, so it was a crap way to get the gist of them all but someone else stole my topic AND did a bad job of it!

I read most of his other books for a second report, because I didn't bother to do work and was going to flunk, otherwise The Sirens of Titan is pretty interesting and slightly easier to follow than Slaughterhouse-Five--though he outlines the entire plot at the beginning of the book, it still manages an interesting twist at the end.

[Never_Scurred]

books I recommend-

Dopefiend
White Man's Justice, Black Man's Burden
Pimp
Breakfast of Champions
Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics
1984
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy(complete with all the stories)
Animal Farm
The 48 Laws of Power
Hitler's Scientists

[Turrican]

I just read "The Crying of Lot 49" and I recommend it very much, has anyone read other works by Pynchon?

There was a summer discount at the bookshop, so I bought some sci-fi too. Anyone else into Clarke, Matheson, Ballard and such?

edit: what I bought:

Ballard short stories vol.1
Carmilla (Le Fanu)
Neuromancer (Gibson)
The man in the High Castle (Dick)
I am Legend (Matheson)
USA Terrorism against Cuba (various authors, including Chomsky)

[The n00b]

Right now I'm reading Places left unfinished at the time of creation by John phillip santos. It's a pretty good book and it has also had the effect of making me put more time into improving my spanish. Anyway I recommend it if you have even the slightest interest in texas/north mexican culture.

[Minzoku]

I've just finished Castle in the Air [the sequel to Howl's Moving Castle and, ironically, similarly named but totally unrelated to Miyazaki prior film], and it's amazingly funny like Aladdin, but where the genie granted wishes in the way that made the most trouble, and in Howl's universe.

I'm currently reading Dark Lord of Derkholm to continue the Diana Wynne Jones trend. Good lord, how I've missed reading, and it gives me something neutral to do at work, instead of being constantly pestered when I try to draw

[Last Guardian]

I'm reading The Best of H.P. Lovecraft right now. I haven't gotten into his stuff since I was in high school... definitely enjoying this collection! I just finished "Rats in the Walls", just... awesome.

The dutch translation is out this month so I pre-ordered it. Never read any of Lovecraft's work (consiously that is) but love magical realism so it should be good.

After months of searching I finally managed to find a new copy of Belgian master Hubert Lampo's "Back to Stonehenge" which is more a collection of studies and essays but reads like a dream nonetheless. Dunno if there's an English translation but there damn well should be.......

[tiktak]

von Daniken's stuff - all of it To tired right now for my hobby/study (hist.) and this guy seems soo wordy

[Valgar]

RELATIVITY: THE SPECIAL AND GENERAL THEORY BY ALBERT EINSTEIN.

WATERCOLORS OF JOHN SINGER SARGENT.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I just finished to read "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro... It's not a reading I would suggest to everyone, though. Great novel but quite disturbing.

I for one WOULD recommend it to just about everyone. By a strange coincidence, the title caught my attention in where I work this winter like a big warning sign it was not going to be easy on you (Crimes of the Heart way). I sure heard the author scored a Nobel Prize lately, but it really was the title that had drawn me in.
Found it much reminiscent of Marek S. Huberath novellas; also, Ashes of Time Redux (the recent darling film of mine), but most strikingly - it's like a XIXth Century's novel at heart; that is, a beast I've grown to think of as nearly extinct. Granted, I tend to avoid the most recent novels (hence my idea of them is pretty vague), but there's a reason for that: the one's I tried to read were THAT gash from the word go. So to see the animal alive and well in this day and age was a big relief.

[drauch]

Damn, 11 year necro. Impressive!

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Bought the cool 40th Anniversary of The Close Encounters of the Third Kind coffee table book to supplement my 3-disc Blu-Ray of TCEoTTk set from the local Costco. Lots of interesting backstories and tidbits about how this film was made and some of the never filmed scenes that Steven Spielberg wanted to film with the mysterious "cuboids" (it was later deemed to be too extravagant to film with analog special EFX and the current CG EFX wasn't up to Mr. Spielberg's tastes). Of course nowdays, today's CG EFX can pull off "the original cuboid scene" without a hitch.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~